The Young Mistress’s Fan was translated from Oscar Wilde’s four-act play Lady Windermere’s Fan by Hong Shen. It premiered in Shanghai Vocational Educational Hall in April 1924 and was restaged in Shanghai Olympic Theatre in the later June. The emergence of The Young Mistress’s Fan was a landmark event as it pioneered the modern drama, the adapted plays as well as the modern performing forms. It also directly led to Hong Shen’s later success as a reputable director, playwright and translator. The main argument of this report is that translator’s power is not hereditary, but gained by recognition from both the practitioners and audiences. This report will investigate the dramaturgical methods Hong Shen adopted in producing The Young Mistress’s Fan. By doing so, I hope to reconstruct how the theatre translators in the 1920s Shanghai empowered themselves.

Abstract:
This talk introduces and highlights the important aspects and skills in doing research and writing undergraduate capstone dissertation, such as how to formulate research questions, how to engage with sources, and how to build a sound argument. It aims to offer a better understanding of the process of writing a capstone dissertation.

How did students at the Imperial University (taixue太學) comment on politics in response to political crises incurred by the Jurchen invasion in 1126? Through an analysis of the networks of students who prostrated in front of the imperial palace to express their opinions and a comparison of fourteen memorials submitted by students to the emperor in the first half of 1126, I aim to discuss the extent to which students’ background and social networks relate to their participation in collective actions and diverse political agendas. A close examination of the memorials also reveals that students were highly responsive to the rapidly changing political environment. Such responsiveness, I would argue, owes much to the prevalence of different communication channels that facilitated the circulation of political information among the literati circle.

Dr. Chu Ming Kin is Assistant Professor in the School of Chinese, HKU. Before joining the School in 2017, he had been a Research Assistant Professor in The Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology at Hong Kong Baptist University, a lecturer in the Department of History at Hong Kong Shue Yan University and a postdoctoral research associate at King’s College London and Leiden University. His research interests include political, educational, institutional, social and cultural history in Middle-period China (Five Dynasties, Song and Yuan) and Chinese historiography.

An exchange programme organized by the School of Chinese for undergraduate and postgraduate students will take place during the reading week of March to Silk Road including Dunhuang and Xinjiang. Details of this event are available in the following call circular.

(1) Two courses code numbers CHIN 2172 and HKGS 2014 are linked to the course of Hong Kong Literature. However, neither double enrollment nor double counting would be considered for this course. Notwithstanding any preceding or subsequent enrollment into CHIN 2172 or HKGS 2014, you will earn only 6 credits by taking this course.

(2) If you are interested in taking this course for fulfilling course requirements for your major or minor in BA-Chinese Language and Literature or BA&BEd (LangEd)-Chin-Chinese Language, Literature and Culture, you may wish to enroll into CHIN 2172, but not HKGS 2014. For any enquiries, please contact the subject teacher Dr. Leung Shuk Man via email at leungssm@hku.hk on or before noon, 25 January 2018 (Thursday).

Last updated: 2018/01/23

A new course on “Hong Kong Literature (CHIN2172)” will be offered by the School of Chinese in semester 2 starting from 2017-2018.